Mindset
🧊The Iceberg Illusion In TradingThe iceberg illusion in trading refers to the perception gap between what people think trading is and what it actually means. Many people see trading as a simple way to make quick profits and accumulate wealth, with the idea that all one has to do is buy low and sell high. However, the reality is far more complex. Under the surface of what appears to be a straightforward process lies a world of risk, stress, and uncertainty. Trading is not just about making money, it requires discipline, patience, and a deep understanding of the markets. Those who don't understand the true nature of trading may face financial loss, depression and failure, much like the hidden dangers beneath the surface of an iceberg. Success in trading often requires much more than just a basic understanding of market trends and patterns, and those who dive in without being fully prepared may face dire consequences.
🔷 Above the Iceberg
Above the iceberg, people often see the glamorous and attractive side of trading, characterized by success, wealth, and financial independence. They imagine traders as confident and knowledgeable individuals, making smart decisions and reaping the rewards of their investments. The image of traders making large profits in a short amount of time is one that is often perpetuated by media and popular culture. People often see the stock market as a fast-paced, exciting place where opportunities for financial gain are abundant, and the idea of being able to control one's financial future through trading is alluring. This perception of trading often creates a rosy and idealized image of what it entails, leading many to believe that success in the markets is easy to achieve.
🔶 Bellow the Iceberg
Below the iceberg, lies the reality of the challenges and difficulties that traders face on a daily basis. There are many hidden risks and uncertainties that are not immediately apparent to those who are new to the world of trading. Some of the things that people don't know that lie beneath the surface of the iceberg include:
🔸 Market volatility:
The stock market is a highly volatile environment, and prices can fluctuate rapidly and unpredictably. This can make it difficult for traders to manage their positions and minimize their losses.
🔸 Emotional stress:
Trading can be a highly emotional experience, and the pressure to make the right decisions can be immense. Many traders struggle with anxiety, fear, and depression, particularly when faced with losing trades.
🔸 Lack of understanding:
The stock market is complex, and it can be difficult for traders to understand all of the factors that influence market trends and prices. This can lead to costly mistakes and an increased risk of financial loss.
🔸 Competition:
The stock market is a highly competitive environment, and traders must be able to keep up with fast-moving markets and make quick decisions based on complex data and information.
🔸 Long-term success:
Many traders are focused on short-term profits and may not consider the long-term impact of their trading decisions. Achieving lasting success in the markets requires a well-thought-out strategy and a strong understanding of the markets and the risks involved.
🔸 Timing:
Successful trading often requires precise timing, as markets can change rapidly and prices can fluctuate. Traders must have a deep understanding of market trends and be able to make quick decisions to take advantage of opportunities.
🔸 Risk management:
Trading involves risk, and traders must be able to manage their positions and minimize their losses. This requires a well-planned and executed risk management strategy, including setting stop-losses and taking profits at appropriate levels.
🔸 Knowledge and experience:
Trading is not just about buying low and selling high. It requires a deep understanding of market trends, economics, and financial analysis, as well as years of experience to develop a successful trading strategy.
🔸 Discipline:
Trading requires discipline and patience, as well as the ability to stick to a well-thought-out strategy. Many traders make impulsive decisions based on emotions or market rumors, which can lead to financial losses.
Welcome to the hardest game in the world.
👤 @AlgoBuddy
📅 Daily Ideas about market update, psychology & indicators
❤️ If you appreciate our work, please like, comment and follow ❤️
🧠 The Mind Of A Smart TraderTrading psychology is influenced by emotions like greed and fear, which can drive irrational behavior in markets. Greed causes excessive risk-taking and speculation, while fear causes traders to exit positions prematurely or avoid risk. Regret can also cause traders to violate discipline and make trades at peak prices, leading to losses. These emotions can be particularly prominent in bull or bear markets and can have a significant impact on market outcomes. Trading psychology is a crucial factor in determining success in trading securities. It includes aspects of an individual's character and behavior that affect their trading decisions. Discipline and risk-taking are critical components of trading psychology, as is the impact of emotions like fear, greed, hope, and regret. It can be as important as knowledge, experience, and skill in determining trading success.
🧠10 Trading mindset tips:
🔹 Stay informed: Stay updated with the latest market news, trends, and developments, as well as your preferred assets.
🔹 Create a trading plan: This should include a clear set of rules for entry, exit, and risk management. Stick to your plan.
🔹 Manage your emotions: Avoid making impulsive decisions, especially during volatile market conditions. Keep a clear head and stick to your plan.
🔹 Continuously educate yourself: Enhance your knowledge and skills by reading books, attending seminars, and practicing with demo accounts.
🔹 Diversify your portfolio: Spread your risk across different assets and markets to reduce your exposure to any one particular market.
🔹 Stay disciplined: Follow your plan and stick to your rules, even if your emotions are telling you otherwise.
🔹 Set realistic expectations: Be mindful of your limitations and don’t overreach. Accept small losses and focus on long-term success.
🔹 Stay focused: Avoid distractions and keep your mind on your trading activities.
🔹 Keep a trading journal: Record your trades, track your progress, and reflect on what you could have done differently.
🔹 Take breaks: Avoid overtrading, which can lead to burnout. Take time to recharge and come back fresh.
👤 @AlgoBuddy
📅 Daily Ideas about market update, psychology & indicators
❤️ If you appreciate our work, please like, comment and follow ❤️
The Biggest Mistake Novice Traders Make When Learning To TradeI wasted a lot of time from years one to four in my trading career.
Being scammed led me to decide to create my unique trading strategy. I used the course material I bought and google to do so. It worked but after years of pain and suffering. If I had continued searching for a legit trading coach, I would've succeeded much quicker.
But I'm grateful because I learned a valuable lesson, which is to always...
Start By Mastering An Existing Trading Strategy Before Creating A Brand New One.
Ignoring this advice, especially as a novice trader, will stop you from succeeding on time.
For that reason, trying to create something new that you don't have experience with is useless. Because it will waste the mental energy and time you need to master what you already have to move forward. Thus committing to grasp the details of a trading strategy will save you from mental battles that hinder your growth. You'll also free up time to develop the following key ingredients for trading success:
1. Trading and Risk Management (Business) Plan.
2. Risk Management edge.
3. Psychological edge.
4. Journalling Habit.
With that said, let me show you how to flourish as a novice trader, below.
Find a legitimate trading coach with a proven track record.
Having a professional trader coaching you through your journey will make it a bit easier and more fun.
But there aren't many legitimate professionals who will make that possible. The industry has a lot of scammers who only make money from selling courses. That's not a problem though as there are traders who live off trading. Your job is to find them.
How?
Do research before buying a course:
1. Pick 2-3 traders you perceive as legitimate.
2. Check if their course will help you develop the 4 ingredients for trading success.
3. Check the coach's Trustpilot for course/community reviews.
4. Do research by contacting people who have bought it.
5. Ask for the coach's trading (Myfxbook) statistics.
6. Join their free communities to ask questions.
Once you’ve found your perfect match, focus on studying and mastering his/her course material till you become a profitable trader.
And while doing that teach other people your skill for free. This will quicken the process of learning, understanding, and mastering. After that form new trading strategies to maximize your gains and sell to other people for extra cash.
Following the advice above, will save you years of pain and suffering in exchange for fun years of rapid growth and success.
So trust the process and you’ll make it.
Trading with 0 stress👉So you see a trading opportunity. It looks like a fair setup. You get confirmation to enter, but you hesitate. You're afraid of losing money, or you have some anxiety that keeps you from pulling the trigger. This is a problem that almost all traders face at some point in their trading career. I too have suffered from fear of losing money and this problem has led to other mistakes that have stopped me from executing my best trades. Today I share my process of what I did. To reduce my anxiety while trading and the actual steps I took to improve my trading execution.
❓ Do you think the color of the candle affects you while trading? Of course it does. Feel free to tell me if this sounds familiar in the comment section. You enter a long trade expecting the market to go up. You gain a few %, then the price turns against you and forms a red candle. And you start watching the movement, especially each candle pointing down. And you focus on the red color of the candle.
😱You get more and more anxious. When another red candle forms. This was a big problem for me in my early years. I closed my trades after a few minutes. When I saw more red candles below my entry point. The solution to overcome this is simple:
🧨 Change the color of the candles to one color. This way you will only track the price and its range.
Let me ask you, which of the texts on the screen is the one that is easier to read? The single colour or the multi-colour? There is a phenomenon in psychology called visual perception. Your brain is always looking for patterns in commerce. If you use multi-coloured candles, you reduce your ability to recognise patterns. Let me repeat that. Your brain is looking for patterns, and one of those patterns is similar colors. Colors affect your brain, your emotions, your feelings. Your psychology, potentially your trading ability. To trade best, you need to trade in a neutral, unbiased state of mind. I've bought in the past because of fast moving red or green candles, I've made bad trades, both on entry and exit. If you get anxious during an open trade, use candles of the same color. So try this simple tip to reduce your reaction to price movements. Change the colour to anything but not to red. Blue or green, yellow or white candles. Just stay away from red and give me a feedback in a week or so. I find myself calmer using a single color for the up and down candles. Maybe this little brainstorming session will help relieve some of the anxiety.
👉 Here's another situation. You see a long opportunity. The price is around the key level and you need to decide. You pull the trigger at, say, $50. You say to yourself, "Wait, I'll wait until... until the market drops a few cents. The market drops to $50.02, but you're still waiting. And then the market goes back up to $50.10 and... you say to yourself, I'm not getting in now. That's a worse price than five minutes ago. I'll wait until it goes down again. And of course the price never comes back. It goes up without you. And now you're frustrated because you anticipated the move, but your perfectionism... prevented you from pulling the trigger. Fear of losing money and perfectionism can lead to irrational behavior, overanalyzing, overthinking and slowly draining your mental energy.
🟢 One of the problems I personally struggled with was. That I wanted to be perfect in my trades. I was looking for the perfect opportunity. You know, when you enter and the price never goes against you, not even one %. Being a perfectionist in trading is stressful and always being on the edge doesn't help you make good trading decisions. In most cases, when you are waiting for the perfect entry, you realize you just missed a big move. Trying to time your entry precisely, at the entry point, is a foolish undertaking. Perfection can be your biggest enemy in trading and can cause you a lot of stress.
🟢 Here's how to reduce that anxiety. Use ranges instead of exact prices. As a day trader, you will not be able to track price movements every minute of the day. That's why you should use price ranges instead of exact prices. This gives you some flexibility. And of course you still need to be strict with yourself when executing your plan. Good traders are vigilant, yet patient. When a lineup they've been waiting for pops up, they grab it without hesitation. But until that time comes, they won't budge. The price fluctuations that lure other traders. They choose to reserve energy for what they are prepared for and ignore everything else. They don't chase the market, they let the market come to them. The opposite of this is forcing trades. You know the feeling when you wait for a trade, see some activity, and pull the trigger early. You force the trade. I did that almost every day.
🟢 Here's the solution. Stop using market orders and use limit orders instead. Basically let the market come to you. Once you have selected the assets you want and done your analysis, you need to determine the prices where you will buy and sell. Your goal is simply to buy and sell at the best possible prices, and use your research to identify reasonable prices in advance. Not only will this help you get a better deal, it will also help you avoid emotion-based trading. The simple solution to reducing stress and anxiety is to only act when the conditions are what you expect. Letting the market come to you is a difficult but valuable skill to learn. So forget market orders and use limit orders. This will reduce your emotional involvement and prevent you from making bad decisions.
🟢 If you want to reduce stress and anxiety while trading, you should switch to higher time frames. This will allow you the time needed to make informed decisions. I know you will find it difficult at first, but you will continue to struggle with anxiety and stress until you make the change. If you are feeling nervous and afraid of losing money, I highly recommend trying the higher time frames. Again, this transition to higher time frames is difficult and most traders are reluctant to switch. But you need to change your environment if you want better trading performance. If you trade in an environment like the 1-minute or the 5-minute chart, you risk the risk of market noise. True, higher time frames don't offer trading opportunities with as much speed, but the signals generated are more reliable and have a much higher chance of working. Better to trade a handful of good quality trades. Rather than trying with many poor quality trades. Daytrade trading is exciting, but it also requires you to monitor price movements for many hours. Most daytrade traders initially like the excitement and moving on lower time frames, but it's only a matter of time before they experience mental burnout, and once mental discipline is exhausted, greed, frustration, anger and impatience will bring bad trades and send you into a dangerous state of mind from which it is difficult to recover. So move into higher time frames. You'll only spend a fraction of the time in front of the charts, and you'll be at less risk of burnout. After a while, you'll find that it becomes much easier to work with a cool head while maintaining mental and emotional discipline.
🟢 How often do you enter trading? The setup looked great, then the price went straight away to your stop-loss before it got to your take profit level without you. Without profit, this is probably the most frustrating scenario many traders face on a daily basis. Because you fear losing money, you tend to use small stop losses. You don't want to make a mistake and try to keep your losses small, but keeping your levels too close to the entry candle is a recipe for having your account cut to pieces. A tight stop relies on you having very precise, near-perfect entries, and we've already talked about perfectionism in trading. If you repeatedly see your stops being hit regularly before the price turns in the original direction, it is very likely that you have placed your stops at levels that other traders use, especially if you trade on obvious price movement patterns. My advice is to start trading with a wider stop loss and a lower position size away from the entry. The position size you use should be small enough that neither a loss nor a gain will affect your mindset and ability to continue trading, only then will you really focus on proper execution.
🟢If you are trading the markets with your hard-earned money, but you don't know what your trading strategy is and you don't trust your market analysis skills. You probably shouldn't be trading with a live account. One of the biggest reasons why you are nervous and afraid when you trade is that you will lose your money because you don't trust your own trading skills. You may not have learned a trading strategy. You do not have a trading plan, you do not keep a trading diary. You are simply not prepared to take risks. Real money at risk in the markets. That is why you feel fear when you trade. Basically, trading anxiety comes from not knowing what you are doing. I have talked many times about the value of a trading log. The key is to use your trading log to keep track of when you are at your best and when you are at your worst when it comes to your trading and your emotions. I pay close attention in my trading diary to times when I make mental mistakes, such as not trading a good trade when I know I should. When I am afraid of losing money or avoiding a good trade, I look for triggers and patterns. Was I confused? Did I make that mistake in a particular market situation? Do I have certain feelings and emotions from previous trades? These are the intangible factors that you need to track in your trading log.
🟢 Most traders are fixated on short-term results. They make money by pressing a few buttons and don't pay attention to the process that makes it possible. They make mistakes, learn from them, and correct them over and over again. Everyone thinks about winning, but few think about the benefits of losing . In my experience, most wins are directly attributable to a big losing trade that I learned from making money in the past. As a trader it makes no sense if you don't understand why/why you can't repeat. Similarly, losing money is a valuable experience. If you understand why you lost. Paradoxically, you cannot understand why you win. Without first understanding how you could have lost in the same situation. So change the way you think about losses, because they will show you the direction of repeatable victories in the future.
If you've already lost, at least don't lose the lesson.
Take care my friend and have a good trade!
Smart Money vs Retail traders (How to Think Like Smart Money)😱 There were a few people there talking about their losses, that they had no idea what to do and I wrote this to them:
It's mostly the fault of mainstream media + youtubers + twitterers etc. It's really easy to communicate the simplest approach that everyone understands and subscribes too. Note that if everyone is on the same side... Usually most people are wrong. They take past events too much at face value. But the market is constantly changing. Its to buy on the upside and not during pullbacks + HODL HODL HODL. With that said they really have no idea where they should get out and get in. That's fine by the way. News can be picked up by any of us from the news portals. They don't inform anyone about the negative side of things. It's a tough place to be and you can't take it half as seriously as it is communicated. Unless you are an investor (REAL) you are looking at the market long term. A multi-year perspective. Of course it doesn't pay off here either. The crypto market is still pretty damn small. No one is too late. Now most of you are losing time, but everyone has to start somewhere. I was in the same situation in 2017. I was drowning. Now I'm still looking at these corrections from + xxxxx% profit. Unfortunately we have to give ourselves time in the market and endure pullbacks of -20-30-40-50-60% to see 3000% profits. Realizing upwards during the upswing is not a bad thing. For me, a huge part of my strategy is to have a lot of money on the sidelines. That's why. Especially on 4H trend changes I sell everything that is not bullish. Then I sell others too if they break the trend and just trade.
💡 We are in the best market in the world, but psychologically the hardest market. If you learn to manage these things and use volatility to your advantage rather than your disadvantage, then it's a game changer.
💡 Institutions (fund managers, pension funds, banks and whales) think in long term horizons and monitor price action based on that (Years, Decades) Small investors, retail traders monitor things in low time frames (Minutes, hours, days). Small investors quickly switch between optimism and pessimism based on current price movements and news in the media. It can be a bull market one day and a bear market for a small investor the next. Institutional investors are not sentimental, they assess the growth rate of the market sector, the total market size available, the adoptation/acceptance, the growth of the network, the analysis of revenues (to predict profitability years and decades in advance). If an institutional investor draws a conclusion, they hold it until the underlying financial situation changes. Small investors usually have limited money to invest, so they often resort to leveraging, which typically results in full liquidation. Leveraged trades have "unlimited" potential losses, and therefore small investors (who do not like to buy spot because it is not "cool") can easily "drop out" of trading because of the "unlimited" losses from leverage. Think about it... as a retailer, you have your precious and hard-earned money on the line. Do you have time to lose what you've worked hard to earn, or even more? Why can't you accept that this is a profession? We study in university for 3-10 years to get an average salary afterwards. But here we are not willing to spend a couple of years without constantly taking time away from yourself with losses? Levrage are not bad. The user is the dangerous one.
😱 There is a reason why 90% of retail traders lose money.
💡Institutionalists brazenly exploit those with few resources and fear. Institutional investors have access to billions of dollars worth of resources and have teams of quantitative/statistical experts who control the automated trading algorithms.
Institutional investors have deep pockets and can influence the general sentiment of the market through the press (news, social media and interviews). Institutional investors influence the news that small investors read. Institutionalists are well known for advertising higher prices to retailers to "buy at the top", This is the FOMO factor (Fear of Missing Out). They are also notorious for creating tremendous market fear (FUD - Fear Uncertainty and Doubt), which encourages retailers to "sell at the bottom".
💡 Institutions are also actively involved in futures, options and derivatives markets. They all actively benefit from short-term price cycles as well as longer-term accumulation strategies. The institutions are sophisticated, financially strong and have expertise. Institutions make money by attracting small investors into the market (via FOMO) and then liquidating their positions (via FUD). In the market, one person's loss is another person's gain.
💡 There is a learning curve that 90% of your people want to skip and get rich overnight. Unfortunately, this is not reality. Knowledge is incredibly important. If you want to be a doctor, or a surgeon, you don't just walk into the operating room and say give me a knife and I'll cut this guy open and operate him without any knowledge. You really have to know what you're doing. If you're an engineer or you want to be an engineer, without training or knowledge, it would be very difficult for you to build a bridge or a skyscraper. You need the knowledge. If you want to be a teacher, but you don't know the subject matter, it would be very difficult to teach students in a meaningful way if you don't even know what you are teaching. So it is essential to acquire knowledge, but that knowledge has to come from the right people. So mentoring is also vital. Everyone must also understand the psychological aspects of investing and trading. Because a lot of people lose money in the financial markets. Not because they are stupid, but because their emotions get the better of them. Focusing on learning is incredibly important, it changes your life. Of course, this doesn't just apply to investing and trading. It applies to everything, which is why the financial markets are so incredible in their ability to create meaning in life, if people are open to it, and if they don't focus too much on money, then money will simply be the result of doing things the right way. Over time, if you do things the right way, you will become rich, you don't have to become a millionaire overnight. If you want to do that, you will probably lose all the money you put into the hands of institutions that want your money, want you to be captivated by a fantasy world.
The reality is that you need the knowledge to fight the big players and win.
💡Self-control is also a must. All wealth will pass without self-control. Self-control makes you keep the money you earn. There are many examples of this among people who have won huge amounts of money without earning it. For example, people who win lottery. These people basically give back all the money they made because they didn't really earn it. A lot of times, the money they didn't earn is put back. When you earn money with self-control, you never have to give it back! It is yours and will continue to grow.
💡 The key is to get off your ass and get moving. Remember these things and you'll be fine.
Forget about motivation and implement this insteadThere is an over-estimated word that people say. I’m talking about MOTIVATION.
“I need motivation to keep to a healthy diet.”
“I need motivation to go to gym six days a week.”
“I need motivation to see my friends.”
If I needed motivation to trade, I would have stopped trading over a decade ago. From today, I want you to remove the word motivation from your life and replace it with…
INTEGRATION
Integration is when an action becomes a habit without any effort and without any force. You make it a part of your daily life where you don’t need the motivation to do something.
To integrate something is to naturally enforce great discipline, passion and determination into your life.
I bet you already integrate certain aspects into your life such as,
Getting dressed
Brushing your teeth
Cooking food
Just like you’ve integrated a few of the above aspects into your life, so too have I done with trading.
For well over a decade, I have the same morning trading routine I’ve incorporated into my life.
I make coffee
Open my trading and chart platform
Look at the main index
Analyse charts using my MATI System
Place my trade orders
Let the market do its thing
That’s it. It’s what I do.
I don’t need the motivation or discipline from friends, family and colleagues when I follow my morning routine.
I’ve just integrated trading into my routine.
It’s time you stop the motivation and start integrating certain aspects into your life with everything that you are passionate about.
Trade well.
Timon (MATI Trader)
3 Ways Traders Can Prepare For SuccessComing into trading with only the desire to make money, often results in not making any.
I didn't make a dime for 4 years till my lucky day came.
Before it, like most traders, I gambled my way into the game with little to no knowledge. I started off with free information. (Youtube and Babypips were my buddies.)
After gathering data from them for 2 weeks, I felt I'm ready, then funded my first trading account. Luckily, I doubled the account on my first day but blew it the next. It was awful but I repeated the process for 3 months till I gave up.
However, I got back a month later. Because I was still hooked by the idea of making money wherever I am. Though at the same time feeling stressed, anxious, and depressed to see my hopes and dreams out of reach, I had faith.
That I carried with me throughout the years, until one day, I found out what was holding me back: a short-term mindset.
Which is what I'll show you how to escape from before it's too late.
**Thus Begin By Thinking In Years Than Months**
Ignoring this advice will be costly. It will cost you your time, money, and mental health. You don't want that.
But you get that by being a short-term thinker. Which is a person who focuses on the now, with little regard for the future. Someone who focuses on short-term results at the expense of long-term interests. A trader who focuses on making money instead of focusing on the 3 stages of becoming a trader:
1. Learning to trade.
2. Becoming a trader.
3. Full-time (profitable) trader.
It's almost impossible to reach stage 3. Yet it is possible when you begin the journey like a long-term thinker. Which is a trader who envisions, plans, and works toward the future. While ignoring the monetary side to focus on the skill (that will serve you till you meet bro, Jesus).
Like what all medical students do.
From the get-go, they know it will take them 6-7 years to become professional doctors. Being aware of this allows them to focus on the stages of becoming doctors. (But lucky for them, they make money along the way through student loans.)
So, coming into trading with an idea that it will likely take you 5 years to become a consistently profitable trader, will assure that. Because it will keep you grounded, focused, consistent, and patient with the process. And that will allow you to enjoy it while growing fast.
With that said, let me show you how you to prepare for trading success below:
1. Create a long-term vision.
A clear vision with a plan will save you from falling into traps that will delay your progress. It will allow you to navigate through the dark cave till you reach the light. But that's only possible when you have a torch and a compass.
Powerful questions and a plan of action.
Questions help you to discover the path. A plan helps you walk the path. Thus to find out if trading is the right path, ask yourself:
- Why do I want to become a trader?
I know you are in it for the money (like I used to be), but that mindset will prevent you from getting it. So take your time answering this question. Don't rush because whatever answer you get will determine your success or failure!
Once you're satisfied with your answer, start planning out your journey by...
2. Setting Objectives
In simple terms, an objective is a measurable step you take to achieve a vision.
For a trader who's in the first stage of "learning to trade" while working a 9-5 job, the vision could be to become a full time professional trader. And the objective could be to buy a trading course from a mentor you perceive as legit, then study and practice till you reach the 3rd level.
To discover that objective, the reason behind it, and how to achieve it, you need to ask yourself:
- What do you need to do?
- Why do you need to do it?
- How you’re going to do it?
After figuring out all that, move on to the next step, which is...
3. Keeping your job
Do not quit your job before becoming a profitable trader. It will save you from unnecessary mental and emotional pain that are caused by forcing profitable trades to pay bills.
That’s a bad approach to trading. It always delivers opposite results that will definitely make you stressed, anxious, depressed, and unsuccessful.
You need not worry about money along your journey, so you can focus on the process of becoming an elite trader.
I’ve made that mistake and it cost me too damn much. So, keep your job to save up at least 2 years of monthly expenses that will get covered once you’ve decided to become a full time trader, and save for a 6 to 7-figure prop firm trading account to manage once you’ve resigned from your job.
Follow the above steps and witness the fruits of being a long-term thinker who focuses on the processes instead of results.
5 Simple Ways To Create Your Ideal LifeIt was November 2021 when I kept on joking with my loved ones about being broke for December. They thought that I had lots of money because I recently quit my job in Mc Donalds. They were right, but I didn’t have the amount of money they thought I had. I had around R8,530 that I saved up for 1 year and 3 months working in McD and had left in my trading account, in total. I planned to use the money to buy a webcam and an FTMO trading account, spend R1,000 on anything, and save the rest for emergencies.
You see I had money but had plans to invest and save it. My family, girlfriend, and friends didn't know nor understand what I was doing. What I did to cut their expectations from me was to tell and give them false reasons on why I'm broke. They didn't believe me when I told them at first, so I kept on affirming to them in different ways that made them laugh and pity. I made it a daily habit to express my false reality till it became true.
I came across many events that drained my pockets within the first 2 weeks of December. My car broke down on a highway 2 hours away from home. My bank card got hacked at an ATM when I tried withdrawing money. My FTMO trading account got terminated after I reached my drawdown limit a week after buying it. I became completely broke from the 3rd week till April 2022.
Can you imagine the state I was in?
I was at rock bottom. Nothing was working. I wasn’t making any money. I was dependent on my mother to survive. It was embarrassing. Every day I kept on asking myself: why I'm broke? why this is happening to me? what did I do wrong to deserve this? Surprisingly, two months later, I found my answer in an unexpected way. I bumped into a video on youtube that quoted a movie called The Secret; it caught my interest, I became curious, looked for the movie on Netflix, and watched it 3 times.
I’m grateful for what I did because it opened new mental pathways that raised many questions that led me to dive deeper into trying to fully understand everything about the power of our conscious and subconscious minds and the roles they play in the universe.
The **conscious mind** is your logical mind. It receives information from your five senses. It is where you think and rationalize. Logic rules the day in the conscious mind. However, the conscious mind does not control our actions. Our actions are almost exclusively controlled by the **subconscious mind**. This mind is largely ruled by emotions and instinct. Its job is to help us meet our needs and urges: reproduction, food, thirst, safety, intimacy, and many others. It is a very powerful force. It doesn’t reason or judge; it simply acts, often commanding your actions
Together, these two minds work together to determine your actions. They can bring you success or failure, happiness or anxiety, achievement or frustration. It is all in the way you use them. *You cannot outperform your image of yourself that is stored in the subconscious mind.* This is what often prevents us from succeeding. Have you ever not asked someone on a date for fear of them saying no? Or not applying for a job because you feared failure? This is the subconscious mind at work. If we do not have an image of our success in the unconscious mind, achieving consistent success is practically impossible.
How do you rewire your mind for success? The process is quite simple:
1. Decide today what you want in life.
2. Envision yourself as obtaining that goal.
3. Find techniques that work for you such as meditation and affirmations.
4. Begin moving towards your goals, celebrating your progress along the way.
5. Remember that failures are simply ways to learn, further teaching your mind to pursue success.
Once you begin training your unconscious mind to support your goals and desires, you will be on the way to success. Your brain will start building new connections that empower you to pursue your goals. Your fear and anxiety will diminish. In their place, you’ll find confidence and resolve. Remember that this must be a continuous, active process. Keep it up and you’ll reach your dreams!
Trading Psychology (Part 1)A philosophy I engage in when trading the markets
- I am not self-employed as a trader.
- The market is my boss and my trades are my employees.
- I merely manage those employees.
Traders often have to think fast and make quick decisions, darting in and out of positions on short notice.
To accomplish this, you need a certain presence of mind. You need the discipline to stick with your own trading plans and know when to book profits and losses. Emotions simply can't get in the way.
It’s NOT that winning traders formulate better trading strategies
It’s NOT that winning traders are smarter
It’s NOT that winning traders do better market analysis
One personal characteristic that almost all winning traders share is that of self-confidence .
Winning traders possess a firm, basic belief in their ability to BE winning traders.
SILVER buy longAsking about silver investment it would be the safest investment in the next few years were talking about next 5 years almost to know that silver will perform better then others metals since its been a long time that silver was being a sleeping giante and next years we will see silver at lvls we never saw before . invest your dollars in silver and thank me later
The Shop Model - Trading Mindset This is a look into the way I see markets and how I see my trading using the Wyckoff Method and comparing it to standard business models. More of a mindset video but I feel is very useful when trading and seeing your trading as a business.
Let me know what you think,
Cheers for watching
AUDJPYAUJPY broke up the descending channel . It has formed a short term uptrend. In order to buy I am waiting a break - retest of the resistance with a TP level close to the most recent solid resistance I spotted.
Otherwise, if it breaks the current support zoen and retest it pointing down I will go vice versa.
In general BoJ is more dovish while BoA is more aggressive in financial policies.
This makes the AUD more attractive for faster profit comparing to Yen and this might drive to further push to the upside cause the pair is mainly bullish over the last months.
Everything lays to the Break of structure mindset, just observations of where the price has/has no power to surpass and how can this action be depicted with big/ small body candles, wicks, velocity of price action etc. Some retracements are weak and the reversal is easy to be spotted. Other retracements are strong and many traders, included me, can be confused if the break & retest is not valid but in fact the setup might be proven right in the end (despite tight SL which is considered a wrong placed exit point.). It depends on what is the lot size, risk management, in which way someone wants to press him/herself, how much can afford to loose etc.
News can whipsaw and create momentarily fakeouts and push to SL hits and drawdowns. The same applies with big players' games behind the closed doors during weekends. That's why I avoid to put tight SL because it is quite predictable and it is seen by brokers, banks etc.
The above, make me avoid trading on Mondays and after 16:00 on Fridays.
Hope that I help a bit!
Goodl luck!
FOMO, What is FOMO? Bitcoin exampleFOMO, What is FOMO?
Fear of missing out (FOMO) is the feeling of apprehension that one is either not in the know or missing out on information, events, experiences, or life decisions that could make one's life better. FOMO is also associated with a fear of regret, which may lead to concerns that one might miss an opportunity for social interaction, a novel experience, a memorable event, or a profitable investment. It is characterized by a desire to stay continually connected with what others are doing, and can be described as the fear that deciding not to participate is the wrong choice. FOMO could result from not knowing about a conversation, missing a TV show, not attending a wedding or party, or hearing that others have discovered a new restaurant. FOMO in recent years has been attributed to a number of negative psychological and behavioral symptoms. - WIKIPEDIA source: en.wikipedia.org
FOMO is something every trader must guard against. It is necessary to control emotions and not be taken advantage of by them.
🟩TRADING HACKS: You're doing ENOUGH 🟩 This video is about the importance of thinking in RR and %. The main point is when you think you haven't earned enough is $ amount - and so you want to trade more and more, which leads to poor trade quality - remind yourself that trading is highly scalable, and so it's ok to imagine you have a 20x more capital at the moment. So x20 your profit in the trade and ask yourself how I feel now, is this enough for the day? Remember, if you're consistent, you'll be able to scale the account relatively easy.
📖 STEP 5 to MASTER TRADING: Create a Checklist 📖
🟩 Checklist is the necessary and essential part of your trading plan 🟩
If you already have a trading plan - that’s really great. Now it’s time to take one step further and create a checklist. You will refer to it before each and every trade, and you’ll enter only if 100% of the checklist is present.
You can have different kinds of trading plan, it can have 5 or 50 pages - and it will describe your overall approach. Unfortunately, when it comes to executing your edge in the market, it’s very easy to bend your rules “just a little bit”, and all of a sudden you find yourself taking trade that is only a distant reminder of your actual trading setup.
Most traders will damage their account not because their strategy is bad but because they start to take random set up outside of their trading edge. Blowing the account usually doesn’t take more than several hours of emotional trading.
So that’s why it’s essential to have a short and clear checklist, usually up to 10 sentences usually that describes, point by point, what your trade entry looks like. You can even check every point before entering a trade (I do it). Of course, with time you’ll perfectly remember that checklist, but it’s also important to honestly follow it without checking every time, and the rule-following skill itself is a separate topic.
🟩 You're trading randomly if you don't have a checklist 🟩
Think about it. How many traders are constantly looking for “something else”, one more strategy. Instead of grinding deep into some specific concept, pattern or trading system, they will run to the next one with the first normal losses. They are running on the surfice for years instead of going deep to the core of trading - which, in my opinion, is the perfection of one strategy.
Sometimes they even find what they like and what starts to show some kind of results. But then some time passes, and after any kind of emotional stress (would it be euphoria after a winner or fear and anger after a loser), he can start to deviate from his rules. A beginner can be so emotional that he can enter random trades, one after another, in the course of a few hours, destroying a big part of his account.
There are a lot of other issues behind such inefficient behavior, however, a checklist is one of the first steps to handling it. Because if you don’t truly know what you’re looking for at the market, you’ll take the first trade you’ll find.
🟩 "Right or wrong" mentality is a fundamental flaw 🟩
You’re only right when you’re following your rules, and you’re only wrong when you take random setups. Again: even if you have a loser but you followed your setup - you're right, and even if you have crazy profit but it was a random trade - you're wrong, because this approach is not stable long-term.
Yes, traders do predict the price movements in a way, but only as a side effect of following their rules and executing their system. A trader will not be fixed on his predictions, and because he drew a box or a line, he will not expect the market to obey his colored drawings. A trader’s job is to take a setup based on his experience and testing, and he should let go of the expectations and his trade, managing on the way of course. This is a very deep question, in my opinion, and deserves a separate post later.
That’s why next time when you’ll see someone asking: “Should I buy or sell sir?”, you can surely tell the person is in the very beginning of his journey.
🟩 How to create a checklist? 🟩
Take a moment and describe in the short form how does your entry look like. What are your rules for Structure, Zones of interest, what is your entry confirmation, and what is your risk and management? I like to actually checkmark every point before each of my trades, so I’m sure I’m following my plan. Here’s an example of what my checklist looks like:
🎁Bonus for everyone still reading :) If you’re struggling with any discipline issues, ask yourself a question: “If I would receive a fully funded 100k account, for free, would I start to follow my rules and would I be more disciplined than I am now, and would I start “trading the right way” at last?” Try to be honest with yourself.
It may seem strange, but many novice traders think that something should happen before they will “really stick to their plan”. It could be “just one more good winner”, or “if only I had bigger capital”, or “when I finish this yet one more educational course’’ - and AFTER that I’ll do what I know I should be doing.
So, if your answer to that question is yes, then this is a clear indication you’re still in a very beginner mindset. Try to realize that ANY external change will not change the way you are. You need to change yourself FIRST, the way you behave in the markets and your mindset, and then everything external will follow.
Stop Loss Alone is not Risk Management - What is Your SystemTo be successful, you must develop consistency in your trading.
You can achieve this by creating a system to trade.
One that provides an edge to fit your lifestyle and personality.
Discipline is required to stick to your system so that you can measure results (wins and losses) over a large number of trades.
A simple journal helps you to measure your trades.
This provides edge and success unfolds over time, requiring a strong mindset to create, adhere and measure.
Goals are achievable through steps that are part of the process.
Things to consider when developing your system are: Market Phase, Price Structure, Areas of Value, Areas of Entries as well as Exits, Multi Time Frame Analysis, Trend Lines, Support and Resistance, Dynamic Support and Resistance etc.
Pro Tip: Trade clean and don't clutter your charts. Trade around a couple of levels with a single indicator.
Be PATIENT to let trades come to you once you have made a trading plan.
And when the market enters your zone, be READY to take action and trigger your entry based on rules.
If you're a new trader or a struggling trader, feel free to reach out and ask me a question.
If you liked this idea or if you have your own opinion about it, write in the comments.
The information and publications are not meant to be, and do not constitute, financial, investment, trading, or other types of advice or recommendations.